When we talk about social justice work, a lot of our time is spent focusing on the injustices that face our world today. The work feels urgent and never-ending, which can easily turn over into feelings of burnout and overwhelm. For many organizers, the work centers on what we choose to resist rather than building a vision for the future. We don’t get the opportunity to answer the important question: what comes next?

Healing Justicespeaks the truth about the criminalization of young people of color, yet it also offers ideas for a future where young people are respected and have opportunities to heal.

A striking part of the film are the stories of vulnerability. During healing circles, attendees are invited to participate in ritual; artists create work that express their experiences of trauma and care; and community members find new ways to engage one another with transformative justice processes.

One of the most interesting examples in the film is the story of a victim whose car was stolen by a young person. You may have seen the clip already; it is one of the most popular stories fromt the film! In it, Sujatha Baliga, the Director of the Restorative Justice Project at Impact Justice, shares the story of a conference between that young person, the victim, and the victim’s friend:

This clip from our film, Healing Justice, describes in detail a successful restorative justice outcome. After every showing of the film we get lots of comments about how much viewers appreciated this "Tinkerbell" story!

In this clip from our film, Healing Justice, Sonya Shah, Founding Director of the Ahisma Collective, talks about the implications and systemic consequences of "behaviors" that girls of color who have been exposed to trauma may exhibit:

Healing Justice can bring up a lot of emotions in its viewers – and it is meant to. As we talked about in our brief overview of transformative learning, emotional reactions create a valuable avenue for change. To channel those emotions into action, we encourage viewers to form a discussion group where all members have seen the film.

World Trust has created a free, downloadable conversation guide to accompany the film and support ongoing discussions around the criminal legal system, its history, and its effects on communities of color today. The film and guide help to organize your group discussions so that you can move from emotion and reaction into action.

All participants’ voices are valued, and through collaboration you will explore what role you can play in undoing racism and connecting with others as we work for a more just judicial system. As we have shared in past blog posts, internal work begins with ourselves and our close communities first and it is part of a collective educational, reckoning and healing process that supports mass change.

Our most recent film, Healing Justice, is grounded in transformative learning theory (like all of World Trust’s films and curricula).

This learning model was developed by Jack Mezirow, who described transformative learning as “learning that transforms problematic frames of reference to make them more inclusive, discriminating, reflective, open, and emotionally able to change.”

One method to address the effects of structural oppression – whether we are those who experience oppression or those from oppressive groups – is to incorporate body-based healing practices.

An example is generative somatics, a healing modality that seeks to “grow a transformative social and environmental justice movement – one that integrates personal and social transformation, creates compelling alternatives to the status quo, and embodies the creativity and life affirming actions we need to forward systemic change.”

Somatics is an embodied practice and those who practice believe that internal work begins in the body.

In a previous post, we discussed intergenerational trauma and how it can lead to harm in marginalized communities today. In that post, we highlighted the work of a 2012 report on addressing intergenerational trauma for Aboriginal youth living in Canada, which made mention of centering community healing practices, strengthening cultural identity, and building professional support networks as some ways to begin the process.

"This notion of good guys and bad guys is really false. Every single one of my clients has had an incredibly traumatic past, and if I had caught them a few years earlier, if I had been engaged in their life a few years earlier, they would have been on the victim side instead of the offender side."